Collegiate Singers and Wind Ensemble to perform February 28

The Fairmont State University Collegiate Singers and Wind Ensemble will present a concert on Thursday, February 27 at 7:30 pm in Wallman Hall Auditorium. The Ensembles will be performing “Sounds and Sweet Airs,” a concert of music inspired the writings of William Shakespeare. Collegiate Singers will be singing settings of Shakespeare texts by Emma Lou Diemer, one of the grandes dames of 20th century American composition, as well as John Rutter and Benjamin Cooke. They will also perform a medley of songs from West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein, which is a modern retelling of the Romeo and Juliet story set in 1950s New York City.

The FSU Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Dr. Valarie Huffman will present two selections for the evening's concert. Sketches on a Tudor Psalm, composed in 1971, by Fisher Tull, is based on a sixteenth century setting of the Second Psalm by Thomas Tallis. The composer was motivated to try a second band work in theme-and-variation form. He considered using a number of tunes found in the Episcopal Hymnal, but gravitated towards Thomas Tallis's setting of the second psalm. His reluctance to finalize this choice was caused by the awareness that Ralph Vaughan Williams had used the same material for his Fantasia for Double String Orchestra (1910), a work with which Dr. Tull was quite familiar. Nonetheless, against the advice of some of his colleagues, he decided to take the plunge.

The second selection performed by the ensemble is a transcription of British composer William Walton's film score of music from William Shakespeare's Richard III. 'A Shakespearian Scenario’ as the arranger, Christopher Palmer, calls it; the piece is colorful and very detailed. The music for Richard III was Walton’s last major film score. Walton remembered his score of Richard III as “the fruit of mutual confidence and esteem” perhaps forgetting that Sir Laurence Olivier who directed and produced the film, had actually locked him away in order to force him to complete the music on time.

Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, call (304) 367-4219

You could call the Town & Gown Players theatre trailblazers. When Fairmont State launched its summer theatre program in the summer of 1960, it was the first of its kind in West Virginia.

Jo Ann Lough and Lawrence Wallman of the Fairmont State (then College) Department of Speech and Dramatics led the launch of the Players that began with one production that year, the hit British comedy “The Reluctant Debutante,” directed by Lough.